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ARSENALE DI VENEZIA: Redefining the public-private matrix

Part 2 Project 2014Lauren GreenManchester School of Architecture, UKSituated alongside the Rio della Tana, the project imagines the construction of a luxury boutique hotel in the sestiere of Castello. The hotel aims to provide an exclusive environment for tourists, as well as providing a shopping arcade and a selection of restaurants and bars to be shared with an elite crowd. Expanding on Venice’s portfolio of luxury hotels this 5 star establishment would be the first in the new cultural hub in the East of Venice.

Using Michael Dennis’s ‘Court & Garden’ as a guide the project aims to create a new private icon, taking principles from the French Hôtel. The French Hôtel (c.1550 - 1800) is to the art of the plan what the Venetian facade is to the art of the vertical surface. Architects created a network of linear and figural rooms, promoted for convenience as well as fashion because they facilitated the dégagements by providing residual areas in the plan.

For centuries, space was the principle medium of urbanism, the matrix that united public and private interests in the city. By way of a plan generated process, the project seeks to guarantee a balance between the two offering a relationship between the ideal and circumstantial.

In the Venetian spirit of water orientated scenography, externally the hotel takes advantage of its viewpoint from the fondamenta, whilst internally through its reaffirmation of classical models a careful hierarchy of spaces and social order is created with a contemporary style to reflect the time and modern conveniences.